Paullina Simons - The Summer Garden

“Ticklish, like you?” Anthony pulled up his father’s flannel shirtsleeve and tickled his forearm and the inside of his elbow. He tickled him under the arms.

Alexander put the cigarette out. “Watch out,” he said, holding the boy to him, “because in a minute there’ll be no mercy for you.”

Anthony squealed, his arms around Alexander, whose arms were around Anthony. The chair was nearly falling over. Suddenly Anthony pressed his head to Alexander’s ear. “Daddy, don’t turn around, because this will frighten you, but Mommy is standing behind us.”

“Is Mommy looking particularly frightening this evening?”

“Yes. She’s crying. Don’t turn around, I said.”

“Hmm,” Alexander said. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s jealous we’re playing?”

“No,” said Alexander. “She is not a jealous mom.”

He whispered to Anthony, who nodded and slowly climbed down from his father. They both turned around to face her. She stood there blankly, her face still wet.

“One two three—go!” said Alexander. They ran, and she ran from them; they chased her into the house, and brought her down onto the carpet, and she was laughing and she was crying.

Alexander was sitting outside down the long dock, in his quilted patchwork winter jacket, smoking, fishing. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, and his hair had grown shaggy. Tatiana knew if she drew attention to it, ran her hands through it, looked at it too long, he might cut it. So she watched him from behind as he sat on his little chair, with a rod in the water and a cigarette in his mouth, humming. He was always humming when he was trying to catch that prehistoric sturgeon.

Tatiana couldn’t help herself. Wiping her face, she walked down the dock to his chair, pressed her face to his head, kissed his temple, his bearded cheek. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she whispered. “I like your pirate beard.”

“Well, your Captain Morgan will be done soon. I’m trying to catch us a fish.”

“Don’t make me cry, Shura.”

“All right, Tania. You too. You with your kissing. What is it with you and the boy lately?”

She held his head to her, in the space at her neck. “Come inside, darling,” she whispered. “Let’s go in. Your bath is hot and ready.” Her lips were on his hair.

“It’s really grown out, hasn’t it?” he said absent-mindedly. But when he came back inside he didn’t cut it.

Later that night, in complete darkness, after a hot conjugal bath, after love, Alexander asked her, breathed out to her, “Babe, what are you so afraid of?”

Tatiana couldn’t tell him. “We’re hanging in there,” he said. “Ant’s doing great.”

“You shouldn’t have told me your dream,” Tatiana said dully. “That’s what I think about now—I’m awake and in Germany watching you being dragged away by Karolich.” She was glad it was dark and he couldn’t see her face. “What if this little life, us, is all just an illusion. And will soon be gone.”

“Yes,” was all he said.

Restlessly they slept, and then settled down again, to blessed silence.

Lost in Suisun Bay

“How long do you plan to keep me here?”It was spring, they had been in Bethel six months. She couldn’t stop herself from twitching. “Day in, day out, weeks, months, years? Tell me. Is this where we’re staying? Is this what I’m doing? Should I get Shpeckel’s job when he dies? Should I put in for it now, in case there’s a waiting list?”

“Shura.”

Alexander was contemplative. “Are you hiding me from myself? Are we here because you think I can’t function out there ?”

“Of course not.”

“So why are you hiding me?”

“I’m not, darling.” Tatiana rubbed his back, feathered his scars. “You’re worrying yourself for nothing. Go to sleep.”

But Alexander wasn’t sleepy. “What? You can’t imagine me in an office?” he asked. “In a suit all day, sitting at a desk, selling stocks, bonds, insurance, going to visit you in a winery in my drab flannel suit, coming from my city office?”

She was all coiled up inside. “I can imagine you visiting me.”

“My father wanted me to be an architect,” Alexander said. “A fine thing—an architect in the Soviet Union. He wanted me to build with the Communists, bridges, roads, workers’ houses.”

“Yes.”

“And I spent my life blowing up fucking houses. Perhaps I can be in demolition work.”

“No, not you.” Please could it be the end of this conversation. “Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out.”

But Alexander continued. “Is that what I’m doing here? Figuring it out? Who I am? I spent my whole life asking myself this question. There in the Soviet Union, here in Suisun Bay. No easy answers to that one, me with SS Eagles, and hammer and sickles on my arms.”

You are an American, Alexander Barrington, Tatiana wanted to say to him. An American, who fought in the Red Army and married a Russian girl from Leningrad who can’t live without her soldier. That’s who you are.

“My mother and father knew who they were.”

It was the absolute last thing Tatiana wanted to talk about. Her body was a spring; in a minute she was going to catapult away from him.

“They have nothing to do with you,” she said, and couldn’t say anymore.

“The Communist and the radical feminist, the Soviet émigrés, oh, they knew who they were.” Alexander sat up and lit a cigarette. “You can only hope in today’s climate, no one will find out about my mother and father, because who then is going to give me permanent work? I might as well be a murderer out on work release.” He blew smoke rings above the bed.

Tatiana couldn’t endure it, she coiled away. “Jimmy hired you, Mel hired you, Sebastiani hired you …”

“Yes, until just one man says: what are the numbers on your arm, Alexander? and we’re off. I don’t know what happened back in Vianza, but something did because it was a slice of heaven, but we didn’t stay, did we? What are we going to do? Every time someone asks us a question, we run? Where in the army did you serve, Alexander? and we go right in the bunker, Tania? Is that how we’re going to live?”

Tatiana didn’t know how they were going to live. She didn’t know if they would ever get to have a normal life, like other people, like other married couples, simple, calm, small, nice. What was a normal life for the two of them? She didn’t know how long she could keep him remote in a bunker, in splendid isolation, secluded from all men.

Stepping Out For Love

Alexander wanted to see Idaho,Hell’s Canyon. He wanted to see Mount Rushmore, Yosemite, Mount Washington, Yellowstone National Park, the wheat fields of Iowa.

No, she kept saying, let’s stay here just a little longer. Weeks passed.

I’ll come to the store with you. Help you with shopping.

No, stay here, catch us a fish, Shura.

I’m going to go to the Boathouse, have a drink with the postman.

Let’s go to Sacramento on Sunday. Find a Catholic church, have brunch afterward at the Hyatt Regency, walk on Main Street, show Anthony the Capitol building, have ice cream.

I don’t want to. I have things to do. I have to wash-clean-cook-bake-peel-scale. I want you to build me a chest for my knick-knacks, a bench to sit on, fix the posts in the fence, planks on the dock. Let’s go for a boat ride on the canals instead.

Her reluctance to leave reminded him of wintry Deer Isle—it’s snowing and she is still not saying, let’s go. This is how it still was. Metaphorically snowing, and she was staying put.